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Italy Arrests Hundreds of Immigrants

ROME — Underscoring the new Italian government’s determination to crack down on illegal immigration and what the government contends is associated crime, Italy’s police arrested hundreds of people this week in a sweep of migrant shantytowns in major urban areas across the country, the police announced Thursday.

Nearly 400 people were arrested, including more than 100 who were immediately expelled. The police said more than 100 of those arrested were suspected of violating immigration laws, 180 of theft or prostitution, and 92 of drug dealing. Those arrested included 50 Moroccans and 32 Romanians.

The widely publicized raids were a strong signal from Italy’s new right-wing government, which is led by Silvio Berlusconi and includes the anti-immigrant Northern League Party, that it will keep its promises to pursue tougher policies toward immigrants.

“The anti-immigrant sweep was a positive thing because that’s what people want,” said Umberto Bossi, the minister of institutional reforms and federalism. “People ask us for safety, and we must give it to them.”

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Firemen hose down a camp of Roma people that was set on fire on the outskirts of Naples on Wednesday. Credit
Salvatore Laporta/Associated Press

Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition, the People of Freedom party, ran on a platform that declared that it would “empty illegal camps, and get rid of nomads who have no residence and no means of subsistence.”

On Saturday, several hundred Italians attacked a camp of Roma, or Gypsies, on the eastern outskirts of Naples brandishing sticks and throwing homemade incendiary devices, after a 16-year-old Roma girl was accused of trying to steal a baby. The police were called to restore order and no one was injured, but the episode led national news programs.

Anti-immigrant sentiments have become harder to square with the European Union’s open border policy, which allows union citizens to settle in any member state. In January, Bulgaria and Romania were admitted to the European Union and their citizens may now live legally in Italy without any special permit.

That includes the Roma ethnic minority, who tend to live separately and resist integration.

“The Roma as well are European citizens and as a consequence of that, their rights should be assured,” Cristian David, Romania’s interior minister, said Thursday at a conference in Rome, commenting on the sweep.

Immigrants are now an essential part of the labor force in Italy, as in many other Western European nations with aging populations and low birthrates.

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Roma left a camp near Naples by bus Thursday. Camps were attacked after a Roma girl was accused of trying to steal a baby.Credit
Franceso Pischetola/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Industry would close without them, especially the Romanians, and especially small and medium firms,” said Antonio Ricci, an immigration specialist at the charity Caritas Migrantes in Rome. “Business owners are really worried about this campaign because they need this work force, they are good workers.

“It will be a big problem if Romanians start feeling unwelcome in Italy and go to the U.K. instead,” he said.

Maria Mocanu, president of the League of Romanians in Italy, said, “It is not acceptable that, because of a few hundred people, the image of a million Romanians who live in Italy, not to mention the image of an entire country — Romania — is receiving such damage.”

Many Western European countries are struggling to accommodate immigrants not only from member countries, but also from Africa and South America. Immigrants from outside the union must get visas, although many if not most arrive illegally. It is hard for many of those immigrants to get residency permits because Italy’s strict immigration laws require them to show that they have a job and a place to live.